In the Cards
by Dwimordene
Summary: The annual There 'n Back Again Advent Calendar is based on tarot decks this year. So:Four lives, five acts, six journeys in twenty-two trumps and three "wild" cards...


**Note to the note:**

I'm not online much at all. Other priorities come first, so I just found out HASA is closing. It was a good run, and I had a great time posting there for many years with other authors. I'm moving some stories over that I know are not duplicated elsewhere, but I won't get to all of them, and I'm not doing much to alter the formatting/notes, etc., of stories. I don't have time to do that. So sometimes there are links that won't work, and readers will have to look at the notes more carefully to see what was supposed to happen.

Sorry for the inconvenience - Dwim

**A note on the order of chapters**

These drabbles (and the tribble and drabble and a half that finish the final cycle) were written for the 2009 Advent Challenge, hosted by Aranel and Juno. This year, the challenge was to write based on the archetypes of the tarot deck, and on three "wild cards," in which two previous cards' archetypes were somehow to cross paths.

For one of these "wild cards," "Caritas," I wrote a double set of encounters: two meetings, between two different pairs of protagonists. Even allowing for the difficulties of straightening out a set of four story cycles that were non-linearly composed, "Caritas" presents a problem. It occurs at different points in each story cycle.

After thinking it over, I decided that "Caritas" does significant developmental work for Lobelia and for Melkor, so I have placed a link in the Lobelia cycle that leads to "Caritas," and added a link to "Caritas" that leads back to the next drabble in Lobelia's cycle. In the case of Melkor, reading in order will lead through "Caritas."

If you want to know what the original order of writing was, that is preserved here.

The cycles in internal chronological order are:

The Bolgeriad: The Fool (Dramatis Personae), The Magician (Smoke & Mirrors), Temperance (Into the Storm), The Lovers (Right Neighborly), The Hanged Man (Down-turvy Days), The Sun (New Day) [and When Archetypes Love (Caritas)]

The Lúthien cycle: The Fool (Dramatis Personae), The Moon (The Veil), The High Priestess (First Freedom), The Tower (Two Towers), Death (The Valley of the Shadow), [When Archetypes Love (Caritas)], Justice (Unbound).

The Lobeliad: The Fool (Dramatis Personae), The Empress (Southfarthing), The Wheel of Fortune (Stone Under Hill), Lust (Bag End), The Pope/Hierophant (Night Bloom), The Hermit (Old Growth), When Archetypes Love (Caritas), The Star (Hardbottle)

The Melkoriad: The Fool (Dramatis Personae), The Emperor (Apokatastasis Panton), When Archetypes Meet (Apokalypsis), The Chariot (Homoousios), When Archetypes Fight (Daimon), The Devil (Metaousiosis), The Angel (Mania), When Archetypes Love (Caritas), The World (Catharsis)

Enjoy the stories! - Dwim

**Dramatis Personae: The I at the Center of the World**

The world greenly cups a comfortable life: a great, gay girth that gives him place and name and substance: Fatty.

Her life is a dance through birchwood and breeze, stars swirling overhead, 'til one day, Dawnbreak strikes her still – Lúthien.

Hardbottle is a hard land that sharpens tongues, puts stones in souls. Lobelia feels their sate-less shifting and envies...

He rose resplendent, consubstantial Flame, bright with promise, blind with pride – thus into darkness fell this star, beloved of Ilúvatar.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water – and Spirit their abiding fifth, for all who are play the fool: all believe they're righteous.

**Notes**

1. Day 1: Card: The Fool

2."Thus into darkness fell this star" - modified "The Fall of Gil-Galad."

3. "All who are play the fool: all believe they're righteous" - Joss Whedon attributes this to William Dafoe (well, slightly differently phrased) by way of explaining that every character believes he is the hero of the story.

**Smoke & Mirrors**

'Twas a night of lights and strangeness – his abiding memory is of lantern light beneath the Party Tree, of fireworks, a speech, then the flash and bang and shocked faces.

And had there been, just ere the outburst of babble, a laughing echo?

Fatty did not know then, and does not know now. But despite the calming teacakes and cordial, all night his stomach had roiled – he'd not sat well with the world.

Something had stirred in him the night that Bilbo Baggins left.

So when an all frowns and secrets Merry appears upon his stoop, he lets him in...

**Notes**:

1. Day 2: Card: The Magician

**Into the Storm**

Sam's in the stables, filling saddlebags that night.

"Shouldn't you take more?" Fatty asks.

"Don't rightly know," Sam replies. "But Mr. Merry's reckoning'll get us to Bree."

Fatty shakes his head. Merry and Pippin! Adventuring's well enough for them, but Gamgees're Westfarthing to their toes.

"And... your Dad?"

Sam bows his head. "Tell him," he says, finally, "it wasn't curiosity – it's for Mr. Frodo."

"Of course." Fatty nods.

"Anyhow, you'll see to things." Sam returns to packing. "No cause to fear, then."

~0~

Cause creeps in as darkness. Afterward, Fatty wonders whether his stewardship's as ill-founded as Sam's other confidence!

**Notes**:

1. Day 17: Card: Temperance

**Right Neighborly**

He returns to Crickhollow in October. The door's fixed, Fatty tells himself, and there's Frodo's left-behinds...

October stretches a long cold 'til the March ground-breaking, when comes trouble. Landlord Lotho claims tenant rights. _Tenant __**wrongs**_, Fatty grumbles, sending money to help as can 'til May, when Lotho's ruffian arrives with a deed...

Quicker than thought, Fatty's down that lane, walking stick upraised, yelling after him.

But whither afterward?

"In Scary," neighbors advise, "there's folk like you."

There's Smith Wickle, at least, to welcome him.

"I don't want this," Fatty warns.

Wickle laughs. "Nobody does!"

**Notes**:

1. Day 8: Card: The Lovers

**Down-Turvy Days**

Rebellion never was grand to hobbits, so Fatty's no disappointments to measure, save one – that it's just as uncomfortable as rumored. Scary's no kind garden: the winds're harsh; summer rains slick the rocks. He's all over bruises and barked shins. And he's hungry – dinner isn't what it should be.

But he's learning. By Lithe, he's his very own storehouse raid to boast of, and Scary's folk eat a little easier.

"You're feather to someone's cap now," Wickle says, handing Fatty a warrant:

BURGLAR FREDEGAR BOLGER  
>Fifty pennies.<p>

"Top o' down-turvy," Wickle congratulates him.

"Heaven help us all," Fatty sighs.

**Notes**:

1. Day 15: Card: The Hanged Man

**New Day**

Someone got his fifty silver after Brockenbores. Fatty just hoped they brought no joy, as days melted into the lockholes' seamless night. He'd about believed he'd become a shadow himself when rescue arrived.

Pippin visited afterward. "Well, who's this Burglar Bolger they talk about? Do I know him?" he teased.

"No," Fatty said. "I don't think so. And he's gone now – burglars don't do well in the Shire, you know." A pause. "I'm glad it's over."

"Not quite – there's work aplenty still. What's needed," Pippin mused thoughtfully, "is a _Builder_ Bolger. Do you know any?"

Fatty smiled. "I just might!"

**Notes**:

1. Day 23: Card: The Sun

**The Veil**

In Doriath before the sun  
>before the moon to sky had come<br>wove Lúthien her witchery  
>beneath the boughs of great beech trees<p>

The thoughts of earth and wind she drew  
>and, hands to heaven, starlight's, too<br>And Maia-like in dance she vied  
>To bind the earth unto the sky<p>

In one great whole, by dance sustained.  
>Where'er she passed, her vision reigned<br>Unbroken, boundless harmony  
>Veils the night beneath the trees.<p>

The sun and moon made but misstep  
>She danced them into her spell-net<br>Until one came who, like lodestone,  
>Did show true north: the spell's undone.<p>

**Notes**:

1. Day 22: Card: The Moon

**First Freedom**

Before Sunbirth, named Melian  
>her daunting daughter "Lúthien,"<br>and tongue she bound for better days:  
>Maternal power sleeping lay.<p>

But with the seasoning of trees  
>Her mother's power, in waking dreams,<br>In Lúthien, lying prisoner, stirs  
>and to her urgent labor spurs.<p>

For although queenly set, enthroned  
>betwixt black pillars and whitestone,<br>Melian dreams, thoroughfares,  
>catches cries – Beren's despair –<br>dreams them into daughter's mind,  
>bridled by paternal bind.<p>

Thus when wine, water and wheel come,  
>Lúthien blesses every one:<br>"From Melian", who long ago  
>suffered lovèd lover's throes –<br>teacher of this heart-lived life,  
>that sendeth forth to toil and strife…<p>

**Notes**:

3: Card: The High Priestess

2. This drabble is based mostly on the Lay of Leithian as presented in "The Lays of Beleriand," rather than the "Silmarillion."

3. "Before Sunbirth, named Melian  
>her daunting daughter "Lúthien,"<br>and tongue she bound for better days:  
>Maternal power sleeping lay."<p>

Dwim shamelessly references her own drabble: Innocence

4. "catches cries - Beren's despair -  
>dreams them in her daughter's mind"<p>

From the Lay of Leithian:  
>"... And one night<br>just ere the changing of the light  
>a dream there came, from the Gods, maybe,<br>or Melian's magic. She dreamed that she  
>heard Beren's voice o'er hill and fell<br>'Tinuviel' call, 'Tinuviel.'"

**Two Towers**

Then to the Isle of Werewolves came  
>Lúthien, clad in shadow-hame.<br>With Huan guarding 'gainst foe throng,  
>she sent her power forth in Song<p>

And shook the earth and tower fey  
>And made the bones dance where they lay<br>'Til all the walls were tumbled down  
>And Sauron groveled on the ground<p>

Yet stone builds not the strongest tower  
>And steel hath not greater power<br>Than Feänor's sons, crafty-wise:  
>Catastrophe in fair disguise.<p>

For Angrist won from Curufin  
>will serve but once, betray by end:<br>It raises pride, and calls to Doom  
>that lovers consigns to their tomb.<p>

**Notes**:

1. Day 19: Card: The Tower

**The Valley of the Shadow**

Before the gates of Angband drear  
>Three questing souls stand in their fear<br>Hound and Man and Elven-kind  
>Walk Vairë's weaving, fate to find.<p>

But Fate long hence had been arrayed  
>When Beren called, when Lúthien stayed<br>When to the Isle of Wolves she went  
>When in his arms, she did consent<p>

And love for Beren did confess,  
>Eä changed when hearts cried, "Yes!"<br>No present word their choice amends  
>Eä trembles, history bends:<p>

There's hope that Oath shall stand redeemed  
>In present flesh and novel being<br>That cuts lifelines to fit the fate  
>that, haply willed, cannot abate.<p>

**Notes**:

1. Day 16: Card: Death

2. '"Thrice now I curse my oath to Thingol," he said, "and I would that he had slain me in 'Menegroth, rather than I should bring you [Lúthien] under the shadow of Morgoth."

'Then for the second time Huan spoke with words [...]: "From the shadow of death you can no longer save Lúthien, for by her love she is now subject to it. You can turn from your fate and lead her into exile, seeking peace in vain while your life lasts. But if you will not deny your doom, then either Lúthien, being forsaken, must assuredly die alone, or she must with you challenge the fate that lies before you – hopeless, yet not certain"' - "Of Beren and Lúthien," _The Silmarillion,_ 217.

**Unbound**

Forlorn she fell, as stone from sky  
>And to the Deathly Court drew nigh<br>Where Doom in judgment sat enthroned  
>And lingered <em>he<em>, though uncondoned.

"O justice!" cried she first, and told  
>Of trials faced, of evils bold<br>They'd thwarted and amazed for love,  
>Untimely torn from world above.<p>

But Judgment knows no lawful beam  
>To life's unscaled measures deem<br>All rightly weighed as blow for blow  
>So that all reap but as they sow<p>

"Then mercy," pleaded she, and Sang  
>As none shall ever Sing again:<br>For Pity weighs where scales want:  
>O'er peerless love mere law shan't vaunt.<p>

**Notes**:

1. Day 10: Card: Justice

**Southfarthing**

Hardbottle was winter in her tweenaged years. Summer, spring, fall – no matter, Hardbottle was winter. It was slate. Lobelia walked the confines of the farm, stones grating underfoot, squeezed the milk from reluctant goats, felt the narrowness of things – water, wind, roads, looks, all sharp with narrowness.

Then came Southfarthing – for an aunt's funeral albeit – but she recalled how the jolting rumble of wagon wheels softened. The light changed, and when she stepped down, she felt the earth warm between her toes.

The Longing in her turned southerly, a groaning of unseen stones yearning for more, for broader, gentler, more…

**Notes**

1. Day 4: Card: The Empress. From Wikipedia: "The Empress is mother, a creator and nurturer. In many decks she can be shown as pregnant. She can represent the creation of life, of romance, of art or business. The Empress can represent the germination of an idea before it is ready to be fully born."

"She is the Queen of Heaven, as shown by her crown of stars. She is the Great Goddess, the consort of the dying god. She's associated through her cross sum (the sum of the digits) with Key 12 The Hanged Man, the Dying God, her Son (or daughter) and Consort, who dies at Autumn Equinox or Winter Solstice, and is reborn with Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, or Beltane."

**Stone Under Hill**

She met Otho after the funeral. She'd gone for a riverside walk, and there he'd been, and willing. She'd acted. By next summer, Lobelia quit Hardbottle as Mrs. Sackville-Baggins.

Then came Lotho; she'd thought that between Southfarthing and son, she couldn't want, that the stones would settle.

They hadn't.

They'd ground on, grown heavier: her boy, she'd thought, shouldn't want as she had. She'd do anything to spare him, and Southfarthing... it grew weedy in her eyes.

Then she'd seen Bag End – a chance sight put flesh on Otho's coveting, and she'd felt the longing weigh her down again...

**Notes**:

1. Day 12: Card: The Wheel of Fortune

**Bag End**

Each year, Lobelia visits relatives – each year, strung out between Sackville and Hardbottle, juggling harvest and husband, house and babe. One babe only, though. The family – both families – whisper. She knows they think her ill-wed...

But she doesn't want them anyway – she knows what she wants, she thinks, she believes. Bag End! The longing wears her thin, but she'll have it! She and Otho – for Lotho.

And she doesn't notice the deepening silence – that she's more often on the road than in someone's home. That even Otho's grown silent.

Yesteryear's bounty bitters like vinegar, makes triumph a lonely prize.

**Notes**:  
>1. Day 14: Card: Fortitude. Using the Thoth deck equivalent of Fortitude in this case, modern meaning of "lust"<p>

**Night Bloom**

'Tis like descending into winter again – harder than Hardbottle, colder, leaner. Lobelia won't sit at first, but stands defiant, awaiting Lotho and release.

He never comes.

Slowly she slides down her umbrella 'til she's on the floor. Time passes. In the darksome silence, old mathoms whisper about the hands they've known, asking her: "Who left you?" 'til she vomits the stones to answer.

Everyone left her, for she left everyone; too late, epiphanies –

"Lobelia!" Light flares, blindingly, but a brown, misshapen, kindly hand draws her forth.

"Who...?" She stops, amazed.

Frodo Baggins smiles. "'Tis past time you came home, cousin."

**Notes**:

1. Day 7: Card: The Pope/Hierophant

**Old Growth**

With Sharky's demise, Bag End's a-bustle. Cleaning mostly, but as trash goes out, parcels arrive – refugee belongings returning from wherever they'd ended after Fatty fled Crickhollow.

By day, Lobelia stays in her guest room, but she nightly wanders amid the boxes, seeking something to answer an unfamiliar feeling...

The old framed map lies half-hidden, but she draws it out, stares at the world beyond the borders: Eriador, Wilderland, the Lonely Mountain. Wild old lands – older than the Shire by far. Standing there on the yellowing paper, they seem weary, yet... content. They remain and mourn, and bloom anew...

**Notes**:

chapter in this cycle: Caritas.

11: Card: The Hermit

**Hardbottle**

She's been shedding weight since the lockholes: little by little laying things down, 'til there's naught but her and her ghosts that linger in the halls.

"Where will you go?" Frodo asks, when she tells him she cannot remain.

"Home," she replies.

"Pippin goes to Tuckborough tomorrow, he'll hire a messenger – "

"I meant Hardbottle, Frodo."

Frodo stares. "Hardbottle?" She nods. "You're sure, cousin?"

"Yes."

For she'd rattle about so in Sackville, and of late, she's begun to think there're living ghosts to see to – birthplace ballast to unlade, to remake as something better. Yes, she will to Hardbottle, without regret.

**Notes**:

1. Day 21: Card: The Star

2. I've fudged the timing of Lobelia's return to Hardbottle somewhat. RoTK says she wouldn't return to Bag End, but c'mon - old lady, imprisoned in the dark? It makes sense to stop at a welcoming relative's house and recover a little more before making the journey back to Hardbottle.

**Apokatastasis Panton**

He is –  
>the first glass-maker, the first to love the density of things in his own image.<p>

He is –  
>the snake who eats his tail, the self-consuming Flame.<p>

He is –  
>the Sieve-lader, who would carry the ocean; the bat scryer, and the deaf singer.<p>

He is –  
>the geometer who measures the heavens with a square circle, and One is his number.<p>

He is –  
>the thrice judged, thrice damned, the Dweller in the Night.<p>

And yet... he is – and can become.

For he was First, and will be Last to walk upon the earth and know himself: Beloved.

**Notes:**

1. Day 5: Card: The Emperor

2. _Apokatastasis panton_: the doctrine that all that is, is capable of redemption.

**Apokalypsis**

Some have said that the vision ceased ere the fulfillment of the Dominion of Men; wherefore, though the Music is over all, the Valar have not seen as with sight the Later Ages.

Yet each Power hears Ilúvatar's Word, according to nature: Manwë heareth therefore as governor, and Námo as judge. Even Morgoth, even he heareth, though he understandeth according to his darkness...

With what ear did Nienna hear, when she rose singing before the Doors of Night, and cast them down, revealing the emptiness beyond? Even Námo knoweth but her words:

"Behold the glory of the Gifts of Men!"

**Notes**:

1. Day 6: When Archetypes Meet: Emperor and High Priestess

2. _Some have said that the vision ceased ere the fulfillment of the Dominion of Men; wherefore, though the Music is over all, the Valar have not seen as with sight the Later Ages._ - The full quotation is:

"And some have said that the vision ceased ere the fulfillment of the Dominion of Men and the fading of the Firstborn; wherefore, though the Music is over all, the Valar have not seen as with sight the Later Ages or the ending of the World" - "Ainulindalë," _The Silmarillion_, 9. Reason for snips? Word count.

**Homoousios**

Tis dusk in Nottamun Town, but a crowd's gathered before the gate.

Outside totters a filthy wastrel – wild, naked... singing. Singing like a string-loose lute.

"'Tis plague," someone says, turning to the old priest. "Send him hence, Father!"

Fear is on the air – the same fear, Father Jeremiah thinks, that fed betrayal long ago. Still, the souls of men are yoked to two horses, one black, one white, that strive ever against each other, and tonight he feels their striving. Long he stands listening, fates beyond his ken hanging in the balance, then:

"I will go out to him."

**Notes:**

1. Day 9: The Chariot_  
>2. Homoousios<em>: "one in being" or "the same nature"  
>3. <em>Still, the souls of men are yoked to two horses, one black, one white, that strive ever against each other<em> - classic description borrowed from Plato's _Phaedrus_, 253d-255a

**Daimon**

Warning for violent misuse of religious iconography.

Water the guest rejects – vomits it forth, breaks the hand with the towel. Afternoon rain, drumming on Nottamun's rectory roof, sends him to the corner, rocking, cursing.

"Get out!" he screams at tear-blurred shapes, then claws his eyes. "_OUT!_"

"Pity inoffensive eyes!" Father Jeremiah rushes to restrain the madman. "Stop this, friend!"

A demon's cry rises; outside, men cower, then run to look. Father Jeremiah lies neck acrook, and the stranger...

"Jesu!" they murmur, staring at the priestly crucifix in one mutilated orb.

~0~

... as a hundred leagues hence, _he_ opens new eyes – again – and wails...

**Notes:**  
>1. Day 13: When Archetypes Fight: Hierophant and Fool.<p>

_2. Daimon_: "They are messengers who shuttle back and forth between [gods and mortals]..." (Symposium, 202 e).

**Metaousiosis**

Men are free. Beyond the world's confines they range. They will not only what the Song might offer, but shift the Song. Small changes, but time grows them.

Such freedom ages them, wearing away flesh and time. Men aren't elven bodies, nor even those that once _istari_ were. Their deaths are substantial, their lives uncertain.

And he – he's one with them, a mad and deadly note, relentlessly reborn. But mortal freedom is the solvent to all substance that wears on him, wears _in_ him. The alchemy of Ages and untold lives invests him – to what end, none knows...

**Notes**:

1. Day 18: Card: The Devil

2. _Metaousiosis_: a change of being.

**Mania**

Silhouetted men about trash-can fires draw fearfully together as he passes. They know him – twenty years he's wandered these blighted streets, an unquiet presence, wrecked by more than poverty. There's a darkness riding in him, and they turn away.

They've reason, perhaps – who knows what he does when he's asleep? His dreams might – but they're bloody nightmares to shame his daytime rages. They sit heavy, like beasts desiring, for there's _memory_ in them...

Rimed in his filth, he goes among the forgotten, haunted by faces with all the same eyes – by voices with all the same cries.

"Tell your fortune?" wheezes the half-blind madwoman perched amid garbage, and turns a resurrection.

He ignores her, would pass by, but she rises from her trash-bag throne. "The angel," she, persistent, rasps; "She comin'!"

Her hand catches his. 

_No!_

His darkness shrieking descends, and he throws her aside – then stoops, snatches, slams her into a wall. Her eyes go white in her head, a wet-dark aureole spreading behind her dreads.

"Leave me!" he snarls – to himself, to her, warning and rejection commingled in confusion.

But she remains – dirt-crusted fingers dug into his sleeve, she pants, lips twitching, "Angel... she comin'..."

There's something on her face when she blinks, and he, foreboding, touches it – wet, stinging not sticky. Tears. She's weeping as she's smiling as she's dying, and she's _looking_ at him...

It's a fist through his chest, that wet-eyed, laughing look. His legs buckle, pitch him to the pavement, bewildered, stunned. He's gasping like a half-drowned sailor and he can't catch his breath, can't catch his breath.

"Help," he mouths, stretching his hand to the one hand that wouldn't take rejection. But there's no life in it now; prostrate beside her, he succumbs to dizzying night.

**Notes**  
>1. I'm going with the alternate name "angel" for this card, rather than judgment.<br>2. Unfortunately, I couldn't get this part of Melkor's story done in under 300 words.

**Caritas**

The door to his darkened room cracks open.

"Come in," Freddy invites. "Don't mind the shutters – my eyes hurt."

Lobelia enters, tray in hand. "I brought tea," she announces, between offering and her old insistence.

But her hesitancy is new, so: "Won't you join me?"

Right answer: Lobelia fairly glows.

~0~

When Lúthien's foes about her thronged  
>In sleeping coils of spell-bound song,<br>She gazed upon the Darksome King,  
>Movèd by strange pitying,<br>And gave a gift he couldn't spurn:  
><em>Thy sister speaks and tells thee: Burn<br>With her godfire love for thee  
>Bond whence none can e'er be free!<em>

**Notes:**

in Lobelia cycle:Your card is: "The Star."

2. Day 20: When Archetypes Love: Hanged Man/Hermit and Hierophant/The Devil. Fifty words apiece.

**Catharsis**

He dreams of the angel. She pours her tears over his head, and senses long dimmed rouse.

Light pains his eyes. Air burns in his throat, and the music – ! A grand, terrifying sweep, ever-shifting – no theme to set variations.

"It was not so," he breathes, from the dim recesses of dark and ancient memory.

"Behold the glory of the Gifts of Men," the angel answers. She kisses him, then remonstrates: "To the world that is our destiny, Brother, and make right lament."

~0~

He wakes to the taste of salt, to the broken body. Terror-stricken, he flees, staggering – 'til he sees him. There, in the street, hand upraised...

_Make right lament._ He's threadbare in his being – _I can't, I _can't..._!_.

~0~

The traffic cop startles when the grimy apparition falls at his feet. "What the – ?"

"Save us!" Wild, tear-blind eyes lift, compelling silence, as he confesses wretchedly: "I... I've killed a woman!"

**Notes**:

1. Day 25: Card: The World

Thanks to Juno and Aranel for the challenge.


End file.
